A bill to keep patients who have health insurance from receiving surprise bills after they go to the emergency room passed the Georgia Senate on Wednesday by a vote of 52-0.
The bill now goes to the House, where its approach to the problem may meet opposition.
The measure, Senate Bill 359, would make insurance companies cover their clients for all emergency services when they go to the emergency room, even if a provider such as an anesthesiologist did not have a contract with the company to be in-network.
The key is that SB 359 would make the companies and the doctors accept rates from a database, apparently the FAIR Health database. The FAIR Health database says that annually it accesses well over 1 billion records of paid claims nationwide to keep track of prices currently accepted between insurance companies and doctors.
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